Dear Marty, Happy 27th Birthday! I look for the green light every time the sun sets. I promise you always. Everything will be okay. Jenna x
I kiss his name twenty-seven times.
The Fourth 365 Sunsets
Chapter Fifty-One
Marty
Iwrite three postcards but don't send any of them.
There are two reasons. One, it's been over three years since I last saw Jenna and I've sent her ten postcards and I've not had a reply to one. I know that she forewarned me about this. She told me she was going to give me a lot of space and she has proved true to her word, but it still hurts. That said, it’s a pain I have some control over. Some. Because I can stop sending her postcards. I can stop putting my heart on the line like that. I can redirect my energy and attention elsewhere.
That is one of the reasons I decide to cycle the West Ireland Way with my father to raise money for a teenage cancer charity. I pour all my free time into planning it, training for it, involving Arnie's family in the process and towards the end, working closely with the charity to raise as much awareness as possible. Turns out if you're a semi-attractive bisexual man who looks good in Lycra and you had a boyfriend who died at the age of 22, the media will quickly show up with a camera or two. I don’t love the attention, but I am proud of how much money we raise in the build-up, thanks in large part to Maeve’s own efforts on her social media.
The postcards I get but don’t send are ones I pick up along the way as Dad and I cycle through wind, rain, sleet and occasionally spring sunshine. Despite aching muscles, the sorest arse in the world and suffering my father's teasing whenever he manages to creep ahead of me, it's the literal ride of my life.
I'm grateful for the silence my father and I share that lasts hours, as it's in these long quiet moments that I find my thoughts taking me to places I know I've been avoiding despite years of therapy. I can cry on the bike without Dad seeing,the wind swiping my tears away as soon as they emerge. I can release my sadness that Arnie suffered so much before he died, and that he died so young. I relinquish the anger and hurt that I feel at Jenna for not giving us a go, for testing me and my love. And after a few days of doing that, I find myself starting to think about them both without visceral physical reactions.
The second reason I don’t send the postcards is I meet Ciara.
She works for the charity we raise money for, and we bond over the most depressing thing; we've both lost people to leukaemia. Ciara’s older sister died around the same time as Arnie did, and when we share our stories, it's the first time I feel seen and validated since Jenna. They are totally different in many ways. Ciara is more fragile, her sense of humour more delicate but just as sophisticated, and where Jenna is full and curvy, Ciara is short and slim. And yet I can't help but believe they are made of some of the same stuff - empathy, kindness, and generosity. The sensuality is there too, if not a little bit more buried under the surface, but after taking it slow, enjoying dates of all kinds, I have fun teasing it out of Ciara and it doesn't take long for my heart and stomach to flutter when I think about seeing her. It doesn't take long for me to insist she moves in when the contract on her place is up for renewal. It doesn't take long for me to feel like maybe Jenna was right all along and I could maybe feel more with someone else. Maybe.
We travel a lot together, to Milan, Bologna and Florence on a road trip, around Thailand’s Andaman coast, a week in Costa Rica, and then to Mykonos where we spend my twenty-eighth birthday together. Even though it looks and feels nothing like Crete, it still takes me back in time. The Aegean Sea is the exact same colour as the water Jenna floated on as my fingers brought her to orgasm. The rich and fresh flavours in the food are just as promising and delectable as the dishes we tasted at my birthday dinner. And the sunsets are easily among the best I've experienced since Crete.
Like Jenna, Ciara holds space for me to feel Arnie by my side as we watch the sun close out each day, but perhaps unlike Jenna, she has more questions about the different shapes of my love as she rarely asks me questions about our time together, more about how his death affected me. Ciara wants more reassuranceabout my sexuality too. It's not an overbearing problem - she talks from a place of love - but I don't always have the words she wants to hear, or the patience to explain the same thing over and over again.
It's different.But why?It just is.But how?Just because.Don't you miss it?Dick? No, I have one.Marty, be serious.I am serious. I don't miss anything when I'm with you.I don't understand.You don't have to. You just have to trust me.I do.Then why do you worry?
Sometimes it's impossible to avoid comparing, but it's never with men or Arnie. It's with Jenna. I didn't appreciate what Jenna's age gave her that women closer to my own age lack; self-trust, confidence, a hunger for life and love that only comes when you are aware it’s not going to last forever. But then Ciara will cook for me on the days I want to be nowhere near a kitchen, play with AJ like he's her own dog, and she will melt her body into mine so exquisitely, peacefully, lovingly, I feel safe and so close to whole with her.
More than all of this, I love that we have the one thing Jenna never gave me; time. Time to figure it out. Time to grow together. Time to just be with one another.
Chapter Fifty-Two
Jenna
My book is published the week before my forty-first birthday and despite the pride and the long-anticipated milestone, I feel bereft.And I don’t really know why.
I’m proud of my book. I love how much of my heart and soul I poured into it. I cherish how writing it helped me heal from my divorce. I treasure how every day I worked on it, something I wrote or read would make me think about Marty. I love how, when I hold it in my hand, my skin tingles because I truly believe it will help others look at love differently – more forgivingly, more generously, more hopefully.
Because that’s exactly how I look at love now.
So why am I not overjoyed? Why am I not celebratory? Why do I wake up on the book’s launch day wanting to sob?
My rational brain is quick to explain; because I am drained after working and focusing so hard on a project that is now completed. Because I had to be my most vulnerable self for this book, and now it’s going to land in the hands of others, and I have no control over how it will be received. Because my book was my focus, my saviour, my lighthouse as I navigated life after Marty. And now it’s done. Gone.
My irrational brain is just as eager to have some input. Because I miss Marty. Because I want to be with Marty. Because I would love nothing more than to celebrate this moment with him. Because I still love Marty.
I take breaks from crying only to do more nervous poos than I have all year. I spend practically all day in the bathroom holding my cramping stomach while my brother slides Imodium under the bathroom door and talks to me so I’m not alone.
Although I appreciate his presence, I eventually send him out with some friends because I’d rather be alone. Even though I’m emotionally wrecked and can almost feel my insides exit my body, I am okay. I am not lonely.
I miss Marty, yes, but I am not lonely without him.
The next day I don’t just feel better, I feel a sharp lucidity that explains why I don’t often feel lonely these days. Because the pain I felt yesterday was love. And it wasn’t just my love for Marty, it was the love I now have for myself. It was the same love I nurtured while healing from the divorce, writing my book, and yes, even missing and wanting Marty from afar, because giving myself permission to feel the ache of my love for him was, is, self-love. I love who I am. I love what I do. And I love who I love.
With this reckoning comes more clarity that I relax into. I know I won't be able to move on until I've gone to see him next year. This hope, as delicate and transparent as it feels, is what gets me out of bed on the days I need to do book launch events or radio interviews. Each time I do the latter, I wonder if it will get aired in Ireland somehow. I also ponder whether he ever Googles my name and if he knows about my book. This curiosity mixes with my hope, making it a more solid, opaque thing I can use as energy. It gently propels me forward as I fill my days with work, lifting weights and walking Rocky, and my evenings with house-decorating, good books and dinners with friends who have no idea that I am just over a year away from the biggest, riskiest adventure of my life. It's what makes me book next year's holiday at Iliovasílema Villas eighteen months in advance, and what makes me ask my brother to ensure I get assigned the villa I had the year I met Marty.
